


The Borders of Valhalla

by keire_ke



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asgard (Marvel), Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23845549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: After the battle Steve can't quite get the doppelgänger's words out of his mind. "Bucky is alive" echoes through his mind and nothing, not even the splendor of Asgard, can dull the pain the words cause, so when Thor mentions Valhalla like it is a real place, Steve makes it his mission to find out more, and maybe, just maybe, see Bucky again.(takes place in the 2012 timeline)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Thor
Comments: 32
Kudos: 127





	1. The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> The story owes a lot to Kelsey's and Elinimate's creative input. <3

The dust helps. Steve looks around New York, recognizes little to none of it in the sunlight, but when the dust billows from the crumbling buildings he feels, for a moment, like he isn't that far from home after all.

"Well fought, my friend," Thor says, as his hand lands on Steve's shoulder, and the spell is broken. This is not home, and he is alone.

"Is it over?" he asks, but doesn't shrug off Thor's hand. It feels good to have that momentary reassurance. These people are not his Howling Commandos, but maybe, in the future, they could be his Avengers.

"Almost. I must find my brother."

"Last time I've seen him, he was in the tower," Tony says. "Dunno what happened after, I was distracted."

"He's probably still there." Bruce, having appropriated a shirt from a ruined store, buttons it up carefully. "The other guy… wasn't gentle with him."

"You killed Loki?"

"No, not killed." Bruce looks down and Steve is a little surprised to see him blush. "But he may be in no hurry to get up."

"Perfect!" Tony hoists himself up, stumbles and leans on Clint's shoulder to stay upright. "Shawarma? I am in the mood for shawarma."

"I don't know what that is," Steve admits, and Natasha smiles at him, tired but genuine.

"It's an Arabian dish, grilled meat scraped off of a spit is wrapped in a pita bread with vegetables. You'll like it."

"I could eat," Steve tells her and in no time at all they are sitting around a table, each with a delicious meal in hand.

"Good?" Natasha asks, even though Steve can see that her head is drooping onto her fist with exhaustion.

"Good," he says in reply and rests his cheek against his own dusty glove. "Good." It's so good. The meat is greasy and filling, the sauces spicy – food has been blowing Steve's mind for the past two weeks in general – and the veggies crunchy and fresh.

Bucky would have hated it, what with the juices dripping down from the bread onto the plate and occasionally the pants of his uniform. Steve can almost see him wrinkle his nose and roll his eyes, pinching the neatly pressed crease in his pants. "Can't we go somewhere with forks?" he'd have whined. "Jeannie's got a special menu today!" and Steve would have smirked, and they would have gone to Jeannie's instead, where the food was just as greasy, but served on plates with utensils. Bucky would have had apple pie.

The memory feels like a shard of glass going through his chest, enough that Steve sits up straight and gasps. A piece of tomato hits the roof of his mouth and he starts to choke. Luckily for him Thor has enough energy to whump him on the back, else the day might have ended poorly. Steve thanks him and returns to chewing his way through the meal with much more care.

One step at a time.

They find Loki, some time later, crawling out of a Loki-shaped hole in the floor of the Stark Tower. Steve's not feeling sympathetic, but his back twinges when he considers the most likely reason for the shape of the hole, inferred from the way Hulk grunts.

Then… Steve comes face to face with a doppelgänger of himself, a perfect copy that challenges him on a glass bridge, and wins, leaving behind a headache and phrase rattling in his skull, a phrase Steve's never realized had been his mantra all through the war, until it suddenly wasn't.

Bucky's alive.

He hates the fucker that said it more than he thought possible.

When he rejoins the team he finds that Loki, muzzled and bound, has managed to disappear along with the Tesseract to places unknown, and isn't that the final kick to the teeth in this already shitty day.

Thor, however, maintains his good humor. He turns towards them and says, "Come, friends. You have fought valiantly and have done us a great service! Let me show you the hospitality of my home in return."

"Shouldn't we find Loki first?" Steve asks, looking around. There is so much damage… it's hard to imagine how the city will recover, harder still to consider this may be the least of damage Loki could do.

"He will be found," Thor promises. "I will ensure he is found, but it is out of your hands now. He is of Asgard: let Asgard take care of him, and I promise you, we will. Meanwhile, let us enjoy a rest and celebration."

Natasha raises a brow as she catches Steve's eye and shrugs. Tony is giddy with excitement, that much is obvious, and even Clint is showing some enthusiasm for the idea. Steve… is not sure. But he fought with these people, he trusts them at his back. They won a victory, and victories should be celebrated, and if a new, alien world helps to get the doppelgänger's words out of his mind, well, Steve is counting on it.

"We'd be honored," he says and isn't surprised that when Thor looks up the heavens open and he is surrounded by walls of light. Natasha grips his and Clint's elbows, Clint in turn is holding on to Bruce and Bruce has his hands around Tony's biceps, as they all stare, open-mouthed, at the cosmos moving around them, uncounted stars and nebulas—

Shut up, Steve thinks, as loud as he can, and clenches his eyes shut. Shut up, Bucky. Don't talk to me about stars. Don't talk to me about the nebulas and supernovas. Please.

Bucky is alive.

Fortunately, the journey is short; the light dies down around them and they find themselves on a shattered glass edge, a portion of which extends over a starry abyss. There is light dancing inside the glass and Steve finds himself captivated for a long moment. He is exhausted, he hurts, and yet he could stand there for hours, watching the light shift beneath his feet.

He is so enthralled he barely notices when a group of guards walk up to them, to Thor, and greet him with reverence.

"Are you well?" he hears at last, and when he looks up, Thor is standing at his side.

"Yes, sorry. This… it's beautiful."

"Indeed!" Thor beams, but his smile soon melts into something aggrieved and contrite. "Regretfully, the current state of Bifrost – this bridge – is my doing. It is truly a marvelous thing, but it can be used for evil, so I was forced to destroy it."

The shards of the bridge extend over the abyss, but there is a skeletal structure already looming there, over which which they passed to land where they did.

"Can you rebuild?"

"It will be easier once we find Loki and the Tesseract, but even then, as you see, the work is well under way. Now come, Captain. You're weary. You must rest before the feast."

"Feast?" Steve asks dumbly, but they are moving already, and he has only enough strength in him to focus on putting his feet one in front of the other, so he doesn't pursue the question. When a man in armor and a spear in his hand shows him to a room he nods to him, gratefully, and falls into the bed as soon as he finds it in the enormous suite. He is, for once, too tired to dream.

Bucky is alive.

He is woken by a woman's voice, calling him respectfully from the open door.

"Are you rested, sir?" she asks, and Steve, who's fallen asleep without so much as washing the grime of battle off his face, blinks at her. "His Highness bids you join him in the baths, if you feel ready."

Her words seem like gibberish, until Steve is awake enough to process. Baths. Invitation.

He's being invited to… bathe?

"The Lady of your company has bid me to encourage you to join them," the woman adds. "She said to tell you 'it's shawarma, with bubbles'."

Steve gathers his manners as best he can and stands. "Thank you. I would love a bath." A cursory glance at the room reveals – as it should – that there are no personal belongings, nothing he could possibly take with him, and he hates the thought of showing up in a dirty uniform. But Natasha's encouragement pushes him on, and so he follows the lady through a golden door, down a golden corridor, up a golden staircase, and into a golden room.

Thor must have been blown away by the availability of color in New York, Steve thinks. Not that he can't see the beauty of the décor: the walls of the round room are lined with reflective shards, which diffuse the sunlight streaming through the tall windows into myriads of thin beams, visible as they travel through the billows of steam. The shards seem to be shifting with each second, like they're—they are liquid, Steve realizes. The walls are filled with liquid which moves constantly, giving the room an ambience of a pleasant dream.

He's on an alien world. He's in one of Bucky's stories.

"Capsicle!"

"Tony."

"Lose the rags and come join us!" he is soaking in an expansive pool of emerald water, replenished constantly by a small waterfall on the far end. Natasha is sprawled like a cat on the pool edge, lying on her stomach, one hand in the water, the other propping up her chin. She's covered by a nearly translucent sheet, and conversing with Clint, who is floating on his back without a care in the world. Thor and Bruce are sitting by the waterfall, by a bowl of grapes which is floating a few inches above the water level.

There is a brief moment where Steve is overcome with blinding affection for these people. He is not blind to the phenomenon of forging friendships in battle, and though there are still ways to go, he has a feeling he will, one day, consider them friends.

"Aww, early twentieth-century sensibilities not allowing for nudity?"

Then there is Tony Stark.

"Because the world has changed, you know. Nudity is a thing now. Did you know people are walking around on the streets, shamelessly naked under their clothes?"

Steve, not quite clear on what is that about, adopts the tried and tested strategy of waiting for context to trickle in. He shimmies out of his uniform and drops it onto a low bench, alongside a few bundles he recognizes by color as belonging to the others. He steps out of his underwear, folds it into the rest of his gear, and gets into the water. It is perfect: the temperature verges on hot, just enough to penetrate stiff muscles, and though it is not salty, somehow he feels more buoyant than in any pool or even the ocean. He surfaces and turns so that he's floating on his back, somewhat puzzled as to why Clint is giving him the thumbs up.

"One for you, Cap," Tony says, grudgingly, and then it clicks.

"We had nudity in the forties," Steve tells him. "It was about all I could afford."

Clint burst out into laughter, and even Natasha cracks a smile. She slips into the bath soon after, sheet and all, and relaxes with her feet in Clint's lap.

They spend most of the afternoon floating in the pool. The palace staff comes in periodically to supply them with small, elegant arrangements of things which Steve spends a good minute admiring aesthetically, before realizing they are, in fact, food. It is… soothing. It might be Asgardian magic, or just the warmth and being surrounded by the fragrance of cedarwood and citrus, but there are no intrusive voices disrupting his rest.

As the afternoon dips into evening, and the enormous windows start showing more gold than blue, Thor stands. "I'm glad to see you so relaxed. Come now: there is just enough time to change."

Tony, who's got one of the hovering refreshments trays in his lap and seems to be trying to take it apart, looks up. "We have something on the agenda?"

"Indeed!" Thor says, as he calls for staff.

A feast follows; Steve thinks he may have dreamed of something like that, when he was ten or so. A great feast of warriors, goblets, roast meats that take up half the table, raucous laughter, swords, armor and toasts, endless toasts.

Bucky laughing at his side.

"Today we celebrate my new friends," Thor says, holding up the goblet his in the air, looking to his parents, the King and Queen, then to the rest of the assembly. "I have fought side by side with many folks in each of the Nine Realms, some of whom are present today, some of whom feast in Valhalla, and some who reside elsewhere. All who have fought alongside us were welcome at this table, at one time or another, regardless of whence they came, and yet today, for the first time, I am honored and pleased to invite Midgardians into our midst. Welcome, my friends! May the halls of Asgard bring you much joy, as fighting at your side had brought me joy."

It is a beautiful toast. Steve's eyes water and he ducks his head in embarrassment, rising his goblet in a shaking hand. Unfortunately, his inability to get drunk deserted him in the face of Asgardian mead, and so when Thor sits and a vacuum of sorts fills the hall, he finds himself oddly compelled to stand and deliver a response. Half the impulse stems from the desire not to let Tony speak, which propels him further than propriety, in all honesty.

"Thank you," he begins. "We are grateful for your help. We. The fight was… unlike anything I have ever seen, but thanks to you," he makes a sweeping motion to include the Thor and the other Avengers, "we won. So. Thank you. And thank you, sir," he adds turning to the royal couple, "for your generosity. For your invitation as well. It's very… kind."

Luckily for him, he's too drunk to feel the full impact of the mortification. He's not remotely surprised when he sees Natasha grinning at her plate. "You're not a great public speaker, are you?"

"Usually when I speak in front of an audience I have a cheat sheet on the inside of my shield, or a threat of impending doom to back me up," he says and her grin mellows into a soft smile. Her hand brushes his forearm, as though by accident he knows it wasn't, and he's grateful.

"Not to worry, my friend!" Thor falls onto the seat beside Steve, one that Tony had just vacated to chat with Bruce, and downs his goblet. "The halls of Valhalla will one day welcome you, and you will have eternity to perfect your toasting skills. I have heard stories of many a warrior who failed to engage a tavernful of drunks with promises of free drink, yet when you meet them now, they found the eloquence to keep those same drunks from their ale."

"I can drink to that," Steve says and lifts his goblet in salute. His head is spinning pleasantly, his belly feels warm and if this is the eternity that awaits him, he will gladly devote a portion of it to learning how to speak publicly.

The festivities continue long into the night, moving from the formal toasting to revels of a baser nature. Steve retires to his room that night content, warm, and thoroughly intoxicated. He enjoys the experience of drunkenness, wistful though it makes him, as he falls onto the wide, luxurious bed, eyes closed, the room spinning pleasantly.

And yet, sleep eludes him. Something doesn't sit right in the back of his mind, like a rusty spring in an unfamiliar bed, tangling with the refrain "Bucky's alive" without quite making itself known. He tosses and turns, yet however he tries to settle, he feels the poke in his side, and cannot fall asleep.

In the morning he feels the effects of the drinks, mild though they may be, and when he is summoned to breakfast, he goes with his head spinning. What was it that stuck in his head, the thorny little wisp of a thought that didn't deign to make itself obvious?

In the end it is the sight of Thor, who sits bathed in the sunshine with a mug of a hot drink in his hand, a chunk of bread in the other. "Steve! Join us! If your head pains you, take this ale, I guarantee your troubles will lessen."

"I'm fine, thank you," Steve says, and as he reaches the table the thought shifts, clicks, and Steve freezes. "You said—Valhalla. That I could learn things in Valhalla. Like it was real."

Thor sets his mug aside and looks at him, frowning. "Valhalla is very real, my friend. It is home to the warriors who fell in battle, and who will be called to war one last time, when Ragnarök comes."

"You can go there?"

"It is forbidden for the living," Thor says. "I'm sorry, my friend. There are ancient warriors who are called to fight for Asgard in dire need, and I have witnessed it, however it happened once in my lifetime, and my lifetime spans your millennia. I have never been there, nor has anyone I know."

"But it is possible?"

"No, Steve," Thor says gently, and Steve realizes he played his cards too soon, not that he could keep the need and desperation off his face. "You would need to cross into the land of the dead, and there is but one way that leads there."

"Can… can we send a message?"

Thor shakes his head. "There are no creatures capable of reaching Valhalla, save for my father's ravens, and they will refuse you." He hesitates then, and when he speaks it is in a low voice. "But I know of one who can peer past the barriers and bring you news."

Steve feels his hands shake. "Please. I—please. I need to know, just one thing, one person."

"You should know that Heimdall cannot see all of the lands of the dead, they are beyond even his sight."

"I know the legend of Valhalla. It's a place where fallen soldiers go. My friend… he died in battle."

Thor stares at him for a long while. "I can see your heart is heavy," he says at last. "But Steve… think carefully if this will bring you solace, or pain. Your friend is gone, and if you believe he can be found in Valhalla, then he must have been a great warrior, and great warriors go into death without regrets. Grieve for him, but do not let that grief weigh you down – you will meet again, in the fullness of time."

"Do you know who I am, Thor?" Steve asks quietly, though how could he? His return was not publicized, and even if it were, how could Thor know?

Thor blinks and sets his mug aside. "Tell me."

Steve swallows and finds his mind empty. Where to start? Where to start with Thor, who travels on a rainbow and flies with the aid of a magic hammer? "Do you know how long humans live?"

"Jane tells me your lifespan is around eighty years. I calculated that your year is about equal to ours, give or take a couple of weeks."

"I was born in the year 1918. When I was twenty-six I was frozen in the polar ice, and defrosted only a few weeks ago, in 2012. It's… it's been close to seventy years." Steve looks at Thor, unsure if he's being understood, but the man – god? – is serious and attentive, and his eyes are compassionate. "I know most of the people I knew are dead. I know I can't bring them back. But I also know that they lived long lives, and they were… happy. I hope they were happy. But Bucky died so young," he finishes in a whisper. "He lived his life saving me, and he died because I couldn't save him. I know he is gone, but if I could just… know he is well. It would mean everything."

Thor folds his hands on the table and bends his head. "I make no claims to understand your pain, my friend, but I like to think I understand regret. I will speak to Heimdall on your behalf. This is not a small thing you ask, however, and I ask you to be understanding if Heimdall refuses your request. I swear to you, he will consider it carefully."

Steve smiles, though he knows it is wan. "I understand. Thank you."

Thor leaves, and Steve discovers he can't find a place for himself. He could hear news of Bucky, he thinks and his heart flutters, but because he is no stranger to disappointment, when Thor finds him later in the day, he is calm and ready to hear the refusal.

"I spoke with Heimdall," Thor says without preamble. "He says he must speak with you before he makes his decision."

The pools of gold in the distance are so bright, yet Steve stares at them until he can't keep his eyes open any longer.

"Have faith," Thor tells him. "Heimdall is wise and compassionate. He will not dismiss you unless he feels it would do you more harm than good. But I must warn you: speak to him candidly and hold nothing back."

It is fair, more than, and Steve himself would probably say the same thing. Except who can judge his own case? He's not sure if maybe it will do him more harm than good, but there is a worm eating away at his insides, a worm with his own face, whispering "Bucky is alive" in a strangled whisper. He needs to kill it, if he is to move on.

"Thank you," Steve says quietly. "Even if nothing comes from this, thank you."

"Heimdall stands guard at the end of Bifrost, where we arrived. He will be expecting you after nightfall." Thor smiles and gently grips his shoulder, even though his smile is impish. "I'd advise you to start walking, as the distance is considerable."

He leaves, and for a moment Steve tries to call him back, ask for directions – he was half-asleep when they were brought into the palace – but decides not to. There are still hours until the dark comes, and it's best that he arrives with a clear head.

So Steve wanders through the streets of Asgard in what must be the most picturesque episode of psyching himself up in history. There are concerns. He has concerns, and he is usually at least certain of his own judgement when it comes to his own mind. There are reasons to refuse him, he knows. Little effort was put on his part into landing the plane, for example. Steve's not willing to admit to anything, but if he looks back at it, yeah, he probably could have survived. They might have found him floating in the water, half-frozen, but he'd have survived. At the time the risk of the plan recovering the autopilot capabilities was too persuasive, but in retrospect unlikely.

He lets his thoughts spin as he walks. The architecture here is amazing, and it turns out quite easy to figure out. The palace is never out of sight, and its symmetry means he can use it for navigation, and so he knows he is walking towards the edge of the city, towards the bridge he's seen from the gates, and just as the sun disappears beneath the horizon he emerges from between buildings to find himself at the spot from which the rainbow bridge sprouts into the darkened sky.

It is a little intimidating to walk on, now that he isn't too tired to think. Steve's acutely aware that he is walking on glass, or what looks to be glass, in a myriad of colors, and that his feet leave glowing footprints, which fade into the lights as he moves on. The sky above him is dark and filled with stars, and Steve doesn't look back, even though he knows the city, advanced as it is, must be lit up magnificently. He will watch it on his way back, when he knows Bucky is safe and waiting for him. He will watch and remember all the details, so that he can share them when they meet again.

Well, that could be interpreted wrong.

Steve pauses midway and looks to the sky. Really, what is his plan here? What is the goal? Because if Bucky is in Valhalla, well, wars are not hard to find, as evidenced by the past week. And if Heimdall is going to look him in the eye and ask if he wants to join his friend in the light-filled afterlife for warriors fallen in battle, Steve doubts an enthusiastic "yes!" would get him what he needs to know.

Bucky is alive.

Bucky died saving him. Bucky would have done what he did even if he knew it meant his own death, therefore Steve must live to repay him, because Bucky would have wanted that. He will live: he will find a place in this world, and he will live, but if there is a hope that he will meet Bucky again, if there is a chance… Then he must know.

Be candid, Thor told him, so Steve forces candor, first in his own mind. Of course he wants to join Bucky. But he doesn't want to die. He does not. Not yet.

The Bifrost lights up as he walks on, reflecting the starlight and giving back its own, channeling it into a flux that Steve follows gladly. Not that the he has much choice, the bridge being a straightforward construction, but it feels validating to see the previously random light guide him, in a way.

Heimdall stands where he had when they arrived. He's a intimidating man, wrapped in magnificent armor; Steve wonders how he managed to ignore him completely upon arrival. He makes up for it now by quietly taking a place at the guardian's side and looking out into the abyss.

"Thank you for seeing me," he says eventually.

Heimdall doesn't look at him as he speaks, and Steve supposes he cannot blame him, not with the whole universe to observe. "What do you hope to find?"

Steve tries to speak and finds he doesn't have the words. "I don't know," he admits. "Hope?"

"You ask me for hope?" the guardian turns to him and Steve could swear he hears the smirk in his voice, even though his face is a play of shadows, cast by the armor and helmet. "I see all that is, Midgardian. You ask that I look away from the untold number of souls I'm charged with guarding, to peer through the chasms that separate us from the Land of the Dead and relay gossip of your friend, so that you feel better?"

Steve looks away. "I don't want gossip. I want…" What does he want, really? "I failed him. I had the chance to repay at least one favor that he's done me, and I failed. I could have gone back home and taken care of his family, but I failed to do that to. This is the only thing, the last thing I can try."

Heimdall stares at him without speaking.

"I want to know he is well," Steve admits eventually. "I can't help him anymore. But knowing this will help."

"Absolution requires more than just knowing things turned out well."

"I don't want absolution. I just want to know my friend is okay."

Heimdall holds his gaze for a long moment. Steve will not look away, however. He won't flinch.

Then, the guardian looks away and into the abyss. He stands utterly still, his hands folded on his sword, and his eyes focus in the unmeasurable distance. Finally he frowns and his gaze shifts, and then he speaks: "Valhalla is not easy to see and not always visible to me. I, too, am bound by the fact I am still living. But I can see the very edges of it, now. There is much reveling, even at the edge of the golden hall, beer and roast, and dance."

Steve breathes, freely, as he hasn't in a long, long time.

"Your friend is…" Heimdall trails off. Steve swears he can hear him blink. "Your friend sleeps in the ice. Even in his sleep he is confused and scared, and he knows that when he is woken he will be hurt."

Steve starts. "But—no, that is not possible. Bucky was a good man, the best man. He deserves no less than heaven!"

"That is not for me to judge."

"That's not—" Steve feels his fists clench, anger surging. "No. This is not right. Bucky died in battle. I read the mythology, I know the legends. Thor said nothing about what kind of soldiers are taken, just that that's the place they go, and that it is a good place."

"I didn't find him in Valhalla," Heimdall says and he turns to look at Steve. "He did not die."

Bucky is alive.

The dark spots worry Steve, because he would rather not faint on a glass bridge stretched over a starry abyss, but no; the encroaching darkness is just the light seeping out of the universe.

Bucky _is_ alive.

"But… I saw him fall. I _saw_ him fall." Steve swallows and sways. "I saw him _fall_."

"He did not die. He was hurt, very badly, and he was found before the wounds became fatal. The people who found him did not treat him kindly."

Bucky is _alive_.

Well. It is a good thing Steve is a consummate professional at having the world torn from under his feet, because as it falls away and crumbles, he hears his own voice, as though coming from a great distance, demanding more information from an all-seeing god.


	2. Home

Tony is _enjoying_ Asgard. You'd think he'd have trouble when confronted with a civilization more advanced than he was, well, psych!, doubting Thomas. Theodore? No, definitely Thomas. Do not doubt the stars are fire, and do not doubt the Stark!

The thing about Tony is that he is not a very discerning sponge. Put him in a vat of liquid hitherto unsponged, and he will suck it up, all of it, without bias, and only then he will distill the good parts and wring himself out all over his business. It's not like he's stealing. Some of his best ideas for, admittedly, bombs, included watching bats. No bat-lobby came forth to accuse him of ripping off their sonar system, right? He doubts Thor's going to be mounting a legal case anytime soon, and he has been invited. No take-backs.

Long story short, he knows he's there because the Norse Gods From Outer Space like to party in style, and he knows he doesn't have much time, so he meddles. And pokes. And dismantles things that he can later covertly shove under his bed. In his defense this whole thing is blowing his mind. He has exactly zero time to sleep in the meantime. Did you see the bathtub controls? He could swear he's been continuously scanned while inside, and his personal soap dispenser spouted something way more soothing than Romanoff's.

Which, damn, girl. You're proportional.

Tony is so good with being in Asgard. So good. Thor explains how the perfect sphere unfolds into a Klein bottle with micro gravitational engines encased within its core, smacking Tony's fingers away from the parts, citing the need to return the doodad to the children Tony's stolen it from, and really? You're a prince, get the kids a new one, this thing needs to be dissected and poached for ideas.

Of course just as they're getting to the good parts Captain America himself storms into the hall, eagles crowing in the distance, the shield thrumming a perfect C.

"Cap, you seem stressed?" Tony says, and is promptly ignored.

"I need to go back right now," Rogers says, nay, screams into Thor's face. " _Now_."

"Steve, if Heimdall offended you—"

"Fuck Heimdall," Steve says emphatically, with a crazed look in his eyes. "I need to go back."

"Calm," Thor says. "I will of course oblige you, but please, at least explain why my hospitality is no longer acceptable?"

"He's not dead. Thor – he's not dead. Heimdall said he sleeps, and he will be hurt when he wakes, the people guarding him will hurt him, and _he is not dead_!"

"Who's not dead?" Tony asks, raising the hand with the toy in it, even as Romanoff approaches with Clint and Banner in tow.

"Steve?" she asks. It makes Tony feel a smidge better to see she is being ignored as well.

Thor raises and assumes a battle stance even though all he's wearing is essentially pajamas. "I will go with you, and I will go immediately."

"I can't ask you—"

"I insist, my friend." Thor claps a hand on Rogers' shoulder and leans in. "You will not fight this battle alone."

Rogers twitches again, and his eyes are still all shades of crazy, but he looks up at Thor and nods. "Thank you."

"Then wait for me by the palace gates in an hour. I will have your uniforms ready; I will alert Heimdall and call for a chariot."

Well, it was fun while it lasted, Tony thinks as he watches Steve storm out of the very soothing hall of resting and having fun. Guess a bell somewhere in the universe just rang heroism o'clock.

* * *

Steve sees next to nothing as he stumbles out of the hall. The golden walls seem to be spinning around him, mocking him with their grandeur and shine. Were it not for the smell of spices and fire he's have though he was once again in Times Square, fresh out of the ice, cast into a looking-glass version of the world he knows, where everything is louder, brighter and ever so slightly distorted.

Bucky is alive.

That is the axis on which the world spins now, and nothing else matters. Steve fixes his eyes on the faint glimmer of the rainbow bridge in the distance, among the stars, and with that as his compass needle he makes his way to the palace gates.

He collapses onto the shiny steps and hides his face in his hands.

"Steve," he hears Natasha say. He turns, and sees she is standing behind him, with Clint, Tony and Bruce following. They are both dressed to travel, though not wearing their battle suits. "Who isn't dead?"

"Bucky," he says, and the shield on his arm twitches. "Bucky's alive. He's in Washington DC. Heimdall saw him in a bank vault on the corner of fourth and Kennedy's."

"Are we talking about the same Bucky?" Tony asks, poking at the bracelet at his wrist. "Didn't he fall into a rocky crevasse from a speeding train?"

"He's alive," Rogers insists.

"Right, but—"

"Heimdall is said to be able to see everything in creation," Bruce tells Tony quietly. "If he said that, then it's probably true."

"Move over internet." Tony stares at Steve for a long moment, then shrugs. "Okay, I'm convinced. Let's roll."

"You don't have too—"

"We might as well, this was getting boring," Tony says, despite the fact Steve has seen him spend an hour staring into the inner working of an Asgardian toy like it contained the mysteries of the universe.

"We'll go, too," Natasha says simply, Clint nods.

Steve clenches his eyes shut, nods. His throat is too tight to let sound out.

"So not to be rude or anything, but what brought this on? Did this Heimdall just walk up to you and volunteered the info? You wanna maybe fill us in, while we wait?" Tony asks, waving his hand in front of Steve's face. "Hello?"

Steve is infinitely grateful that Bruce immediately pull Tony back by the elbow. Still, it is a legitimate question; if he's to drag them into this, he owes them an explanation.

"Before—Right after the battle there was the doppelgänger. My doppelgänger. I thought he was Loki, at first, but he said… he said to me 'Bucky's alive'. I didn't believe him, but then we came here, and Thor mentioned Valhalla, and I thought… I thought if I could know Bucky's okay, that he's there, then I would be able to at least have that. I let him down, but I would have known that he's fine now. Thor said Heimdall can sometimes see through to the land of the dead. So, I asked. I asked and Heimdall said Bucky survived the fall, that he is alive right now."

"Fuck," Tony says.

"The files list him as missing in action, but there was no rescue mission, so he was presumed dead," Natasha says, and Steve flinches.

"When he fell… the train was going through the alps, over a gorge at least two-three hundred feet deep. There were no trees there, nothing but ice and rock, not even a pond to break the fall." Steve takes a deep breath and looks her in the eye. "His whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did… whatever Zola did to him, it must have helped him survive the fall."

"It's not your fault, Steve," Natasha says quietly.

"How? I could have looked for him. I should have looked for him." He drags his hands through his hair, nearly brains himself with the edge of the shield. His heart feels like it's going a mile a minute, just hammering madly at the inside of his chest, like it wants out, away from him and his utter garbage pile failure of a life.

Steve cannot even blame it.

"You couldn't have known."

"If I'd paid more attention, I would have known something was different. He wouldn't speak about what happened, but every now and then he would just—" Steve's voice fails him. "He kept up with me," he says slowly, and it's all he can do to stop the words coming out in a wail. "He never fell back, not once, he was by my side no matter what stupid plan I got into my head, he was always there, always, and I never questioned it. He shouldn't have been able to keep up, after the serum. But he did. And I never wondered why."

Bucky is alive.

He's alive.

"Steve?" Natasha settles by his side, Steve can tell by the lightness of her steps more than by looking to the side, the same way he knows Clint is waiting half a dozen feet away, though god knows why they're even entertaining him, how can they expect him to lead anything, with a failure of this magnitude hanging over his head.

"How could I have not noticed?" Steve lets his hands fall and he stares off into the golden twilight raising over the shining spires of Asgard. "Why didn't I go looking for him?"

"You had a war to win."

"What's the point of winning the war if I had to lose everything?" he asks her.

Natasha meets his eyes. "You didn't lose everything. I know it feels like you weren't left with much, but… Steve, you did not lose everything."

"I lost him. I lost my—best friend." His voice breaks and there's a part of him that panics, that wishes he could take it back, so he looks her in the eye and does not flinch away when she searches his face, no doubt learning more than he wishes she would.

"It feels like losing everything, doesn't it? When you love someone this much, losing them must feel like there's nothing else left." She offers him a small smile, places her hand on his. "But there is. There is always something."

Steve looks at her, at Tony, Clint and Bruce, all three watching him, and turns his palm to squeeze Natasha's hand. "There is something," he agrees.

They do not have to wait long before a chariot pulls up, and a handful of Asgardians show up, holding Steve's, Natasha's and Clint's battle suits, cleaned and mended. Steve's not sure if he's grateful to have his back, but at least Bucky will have a good laugh about it, when he sees him, and that alone lifts his mood.

He's got this. Bucky is alive, he has a team, and he has got this.

* * *

He hasn't got this.

"We need to go now," he insists, but Natasha isn't even paying attention to him anymore.

"We have limited options here," she says, pointing to the holographic representation of the building. "This is a vault, so chances are it will be under heavy surveillance. Forcing our way in would create problems we probably don't want."

"Can't your people deal with this?" Tony asks. "I would think a shadowy government organization will have ways of getting stuff out of a bank, isn't there a provision in the Patriot Act or something?"

Natasha hesitates. "You know how organizations are, there's paperwork, all kinds of red tape, best to get it over with without asking and then worry about clean-up," she says, flippantly, but there is something in the way she says it, a tremor at the very edge of her voice, that has the back of Steve's mind sit up and pay attention.

He listens, with keen interest, as she lists all the security measures and alarms, notes each one, and watches her pinpoint them on the hologram. "How do we get around the motion detectors?"

Natasha brings up a projection of what seems to be an access panel. "We'll have to disable them."

Steve nods. "You can do that over the internet? This doesn't seem too secure."

"You know about the internet?" Tony asks, with genuine surprise in his voice, which Steve manages to almost let go.

"It was third on the list of major events SHIELD gave me."

"What were the first two?"

"Nine-eleven and the threat of nuclear war."

"That feels like an oversimplification of the century," Tony says, flaps a hand to indicate his laboratory, and Steve vows silently never to mention Stark the man and the company barely made it into the top fifty.

"SHIELD likes to compartmentalize," Natasha says, and goes back to studying the display. "How accurate is this?"

"I got the plans of the building from the city planning office, so quite," Tony says.

"Something must be missing."

"Like a secret room?"

"No, the space seems accounted for," she says, as her eyes are running over the projection, "but according to the security measures and even the most generous estimate of equipment something else must have been installed in the early aughts."

"Maybe they've got a big snack fridge."

"Maybe," Natasha says, frowning.

"How can you tell?" Steve asks, fascinated despite himself.

"The bank opened in 1995, and according to their initial energy bills they were pooling at about one kilo-watt hour per square meter. Then in 2002 the energy consumption went up by fifteen percent, despite the lack of significant upgrades or remodeling."

"You're saying they installed something big that runs on electricity and didn't tell anyone?"

"Yes."

"I'm guessing it's a bad sign."

Natasha hesitates. "I think SHIELD had a hand in this," she admits. "I can't find anything specific, but I have a hunch."

Steve freezes, and he is not the only one. Clint slowly raises from his perch, and even Bruce comes closer. "SHIELD had something to do with this?"

"I can't be sure, but I recognize this company name." She pulls up a scan of a bill and points. "JL Construction Limited. It's a SHIELD cover. I've used it several times."

"This is not a very specific name," Tony says, without any real heat. "There are at least three with those initials in New York alone."

"It could be nothing," Natasha admits, but by the way she holds herself Steve is already able to tell she only says it so that it is on the record, and that can only really mean one thing.

"Bucky is in a place SHIELD built," Steve says, taking care to enunciate each word.

Bruce looks away, but Steve finds he is not really surprised to find no one seems surprised. Tony goes back to poking at the hologram.

"Well, now at least we can do in without feeling like we're gonna rob a bank."

"We are going to rob a bank, Stark," Natasha says. Clint moves to stand at her side. The back of his hand brushes hers, just so, and she straightens up and smiles, even though there's very little humor in it. "Here's how we're going to do this."

* * *

Twelve hours later Steve and Thor, both wearing inconspicuous repairmen outfits, are loading an enormous metal box, hooked up to a patented Stark-brand energy gizmo, onto a trolley. It is just after nine p.m., perfect time to perform some light maintenance duties around a place of business, especially the exchange of non-essential equipment.

"Package is secure," Thor says into their com device, and winks at Steve.

"I can confirm if the popsicle inside was alive when we found him, nothing has changed." Tony checks the readings on his hand-held monitor and raps his knuckles against the metal.

"Stop that," Steve tells him. He knows he sounds tetchy. He does not care.

"Relax, Rogers. He's alive and in perfect hibernation. Best of all, Boba Fett ain't waiting."

"What?"

Tony huffs out his disappointment and hitches the box of files higher against his hip. "Soon as we wake him up there's going to be a movie night."

Thor beams at that. "I would be delighted. I've seen some of your movies, Jane showed me. I was very impressed."

"Oh, what did you see?" Natasha asks over the coms, just a hint of laughter in her tone.

"It was about an actor who desires to make movies in which he talks, but his partner's voice is too jarring to successfully make the transition, so together with his best friend they enlist the help of another, to deceive their audience." Thor checks the stability of the trolley and gives it a gentle nudge. "He falls in love with the woman who lends her voice to the endeavor. There were many songs, which I found enjoyable – many of your movies would benefit from having more songs."

"Who'd have thought," Tony says, nodding towards a glass-encased dome mounted onto the ceiling. "Well, if that's up your alley, heads up and sing for the camera now."

"You said the cameras were off!"

"Figure of speech."

"Cameras are on," Natasha says. Steve lets the lilt of her voice comfort him, even where the words don't. "But only I have access to the live feed and the recordings are of empty corridors."

"I've always wanted to rob a bank," Tony says with what Steve feels is an undue amount of glee, and Natasha clearly shares the sentiment, as he hears her scoff.

"I think it is in your job description already, Mr. Moneybags," whisper the coms and Steve sniggers.

"I hate to say this, but I used to think about it, too," he says.

"Be still my heart!"

"But I expect many a starving artist had that fantasy in the thirties."

Natasha lets out a long laugh, the door before them slide open and Steve heaves. The wheels of the trolley squeal as they push their cargo out and into the street, where an inconspicuous white van with the JL logo is waiting, the back open and waiting.

"Ready?" Thor braces himself on the left and together they maneuver the trolley onto the lifting platform.

"Ten more seconds for upload," says Natasha's voice through the coms, and the engine of the van rumbles to life.

Steve doesn't really hear Clint floor it, which from what he knows is good: they should keep up the appearance of routine repair. He allows himself to truly take in the steel contraption they've just hauled of the bank. It resembles a sarcophagus. It feels like one, too.

He does feel the van tremble and take off, and that's really the only thing he allows himself to feel for the following hour.

"Steve?" Natasha is standing over him, one hand on his shoulder. They must have made the stop and collected her, as planned. "We're at the airport. We need to move into the quinjet."

Steve looks around. The back of the van is open and Thor is releasing the brakes on the trolley wheels. Clint is opening the hatch of a quinjet a few hundred yards away, closely followed by Tony. "Yeah. Of course."

 _Not long now, Buck._ He keeps one hand on the cryopod as they move it, just in case, and immediately claims the seat that would allow him to continue to do so, even if the quinjet is small enough that the box would never be out of the way, let alone sight. He feels it tremble when they take off, and it must show on his face, because Tony is immediately grasping for the little doodad he's been scanning everything with.

"The vibrations are within the machine parameters. It's buffered." He fiddles with the computer some more, and nudges the box at his side. "I sent Bruce the scans of the documents. He's going to start setting the lab up for defrosting."

"Thank you," Steve says quietly, and returns his focus to the pod.

They leave him alone, as much as it is possible on the small plane, and it is only when they approach New York airspace that his vigil encounters a momentary resistance. Steve looks up to find the cargo hold emptier than it should be, which means Thor had to have crammed himself into the pilot cabin along with Tony and Clint, leaving him alone with Natasha.

She comes up to him, takes a seat at his right, and places her palm on the cryopod, before folding both hands in her lap.

"Steve, we need to talk."

"About?"

"I looked at the files we got. I think… I think I know who is inside this." She indicates the cryopod with her chin and doesn't say anything more until Steve is looking at her looking at it.

"What do you mean?"

"Those in the intelligence circles that believe he isn't a ghost story call him the Winter Soldier."

"I don't understand."

"I was escorting an engineer out of Odessa a few years back. Our tires got shot out, we went over a cliff. I got my engineer out, I tried to cover him, but the assassin took a shot anyway. Bullet went through my side and into his skull." Natasha lifts her head and looks him in the eye. "I'm not trying to hurt you, Steve. But there's a possibility that when we open this box we will find someone you will not want to have found."

She's changed out of the grey office-appropriate outfit she picked for the heist into a pair of jeans and a loose shirt, but the set of her shoulders and expression is somber, not at all indicative of a successful heist.

"You're telling me when we open this box we will find a killer," Steve surmises.

"Yes."

He smiles at her, wanly. "That's okay."

"Okay?"

"I am not expecting to see a fresh-faced kid. I'm not naïve enough to assume that if that's really him in the box he spent the last seventy years in pleasant dreams." Even without Heimdall outright stating he was not treated kindly when he was found, Steve would have guessed that an enemy soldier of some renown, an accomplished sniper no less, would not be patched up and returned to his army. Especially considering what they were up against.

"There's a world of difference between expecting that and finding a stone-cold killer."

"Bucky was a killer, Natasha." He touches her shoulder until she turns her face towards his. "I admired that about him."

"Now you're pulling my leg."

"There's a kind of weird, raw honestly in doing what he did in the war. Enemy soldiers are people and so people need to die, and if you don't have a firm understanding of this, you'd start thinking of ways around it, and sometimes… sometimes there aren't any. Sometimes you have to look a man in the eye and kill him, before he kills one of yours and for no other reason. Bucky always understood that."

"That was war, though. I imagine it's different when you're fighting a war," she says bitterly.

"Different how?" Steve knows little about her, but already he can guess enough to speculate. He recognizes the look in her eyes, at least, the blank focus of a killer. He recognizes the same brutal honesty he admired in Bucky, and maybe one day he'll tell her it's why he decided to trust her. "War is what the brass calls it to make the cost seem worth it, but when you're in the mud and you're pulling a trigger what difference does it make?"

She scoffs. "It makes a difference, Rogers. It matters whether you're fighting the war, it matters for whom you're killing. Trust me on this." She turns back to watch the lights flicker on Tony's power source. "It matters why you do it."

"It does matter, yeah."

"And yet you say you admired him for being a killer," she says.

"Some bullies just need to be stopped. And sometimes there is no other way, because letting them go on would mean a whole lot of other people would die, and when that happens, when you're in that position, you don't want to be hemming and hawing how this Nazi is secretly a good person, deep down."

"Being able to look a man in the eyes and kill him without a word is not something to be admired, Rogers."

"Depends. When you're fighting a war chances are you will be in a situation where killing is unavoidable, and either you learn, or you start thinking of those people as obstacles to be removed." It certainly took him a while to learn that, really learn it, in his soul. His body learned it quick and it bothered him for a long while that he could kill a man and not notice until way after the fact. "Bucky wasn't able to kill when he needed to because he was a perfect soldier. He could do it because was a good man."

"Some people might tell you there's no difference if in the end all you are left with is a corpse."

"A corpse and his killer," Steve tells her. "And it does matter what's in the killer."

"Do you really believe that?" she asks, quietly, and Steve smiles.

"I do."

* * *

The cryopod opens slowly, after long hours of coming up to temperature. Natasha makes sure her guns are loaded – out of respect for Steve she filled the one on her right hip with the strongest tranquilizers SHIELD had to offer – and that her seat has a clear view of the pod. Tony's scans confirmed the defrosting proceeded as expected, in that there is something man-shaped inside, that there is a heartbeat and brain activity. Beyond that, they are still deep in the woods without a map, led by a man who insists a bunch of pines stand in the way of him seeing the forest.

They have a manual that Steve almost set on fire by the time they got through page one, and only Tony's timely intervention saved them the trouble of having to figure out the defrosting protocol from smoldering scraps. They have pages and pages of instructions on how to control the soldier, which Natasha suspects might be omitting something, but that's a problem for another day.

They're taking no chances: if this goes wrong, Steve will never forgive them, which is why they now have to suffer through the antics of a man of immediate action forced to experience delayed gratification. He goes through alternating periods of standing two feet away from the pod, boring into it with his gaze, and pacing around the lab like someone was trying to drag his lungs out through his nostrils, and he had no choice but to chase the wire.

Natasha rolls her eyes at Clint, who, like her, is perched on a cabinet, albeit in a far corner of the room, bow at the ready. He grins, but then flicks his gaze to Steve briefly and most of the mirth leeches out.

She nods.

God, she thinks as she turns back to watch the pod, I do not believe in you, but if you're listening, let this go well.

She feared the Winter Soldier, once upon a time. Now she prays for him. How strange the world has turned.

The metal groans as the hiss of decompression fills the room, along with billowing smoke, and finally the contraption is wide open. Steve rips the lid clean off the hinges, lets it drop on the laboratory floor, denting a few tiles. Tony's got a reprimand on the tip of his tongue, but the pod is open now, and they can all see what's inside.

Barnes' skin is deathly pale, though the holographic projections hovering over the worktable confirm he is breathing, and his heart is pumping blood through his veins.

His left shoulder is covered by sheets of metal, and peaking from underneath them is gnarly scar tissue, like little flames were licking at the skin in that spot.

"Tony—" Steve says.

"The whole arm is metal," Tony says in a hushed voice. "The shoulder socket has been reinforced and there are wires that go all the way out to his spine."

Barnes' eyes move. There's a hint of color in his cheeks now, but even with that it's very obvious his skin hasn't been exposed to sunlight in way too long. His hair is curling around his ear and jaw. He's wearing some kind of underwear, a form-fitting grey sleeveless bodysuit. His feet are bare.

It will take no less than ten direct hits to the torso with the tranquilizers before he slows down. A full minute before he can be safely engaged by eight men. Five more before he can be subdued.

Expected casualties: two.

There is six of them here, including the Hulk and a God of Thunder, granted, but Natasha has no illusions whose side will Steve fight on.

"Bucky?" Steve whispers. He is trembling now, like his whole body vibrated that one word, rather than just the vocal cords.

The response is slow, glacial even. Barnes' eyelashes move, his head twitches and he is looking straight at Steve. Natasha's hand rests on her pistol, not yet wrapping it around the handle, merely taking comfort from its presence.

"Bucky," Steve repeats.

Barnes does not speak. He taxes the laboratory with his gaze, taking in the rest of the Avengers who have gathered in the meanwhile, before looking back to Steve.

"Sir," he says at last in a raspy voice.

"Bucky—"

But he says nothing more. He stares at Steve with mild curiosity, but makes no move to extract himself from the cryopod. He merely looks, seemingly content to let the rest of the world turn.

"You're just going to wait and let us drag you out?" Tony asks, swinging a gauntleted arm around the lab. "We can, sure."

"Tony!"

"I'm asking! Politely!"

Natasha gets up. She places a hand on Steve's shoulder, just in time to stop him from getting in Tony's face, before turning to Barnes. "Step out and stand on the floor," she says firmly.

He extends a hand, grasps the edge of the pod. His bare feet find purchase on the edge, he lifts himself out, and steps out onto the cold tiles.

"Now what?" Clint hisses at Natasha.

"Bucky," Steve tries, but Natasha pushes him to the side.

"Do you know where you are?" she asks. "Do you know who I am?"

Barnes stares at her, without blinking, for a good long while, frowns, then looks around.

"Stark laboratory," he says. "You are Black Widow."

"Woah, that is—"

"That is obvious to anyone who can read the logo on the display, you stuck your name on half the things here." Steve tells Tony. "Not sure about the other part."

A Black Widow stance is obvious to a man trained by the right people. Retention of training and basic observation skills indicates cognitive functions are in order. "My name used to be Natalia Romanova. Do you remember that?"

"No."

This indicated the previous wipe was stable, per the manual, but as she's never been his handler, not meaningful.

"What is your name?" she asks then, and though his face remains blank, his eyes flick from place to place, before coming back to Natasha and then something in him takes a step back, cowers from the stark reality of what the question made him ponder. His expression doesn't change, but the shadow in his eyes deepens.

He doesn't know his own name, she thinks, dispassionately, and weirdly that makes her hand relax. Maybe Steve is right. Maybe the god that does not exist is listening.

* * *

"Bucky," Steve blurts out when the weight of the silence becomes too much to bear. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You were born in 1917, in Shelbyville, Indiana, but you lived most of your life in Brooklyn. You were—"

"I know you," Bucky says.

"What?"

Bucky frowns. His hands, both flesh and metal, close, then open again, pressing into the sides of his thighs. His lips part, like he's about to speak, then close again, until finally he ducks his head and looks at Steve through his lashes. "Who are you?"

Steve swallows. "I'm—my name is Steve Rogers."

"I know you," Bucky says again, frowns, looks away, then looks back. "Why?"

"You've known me your whole life," Steve says quietly, and fuck, he is this close to crying. He thought he was ready for this. god, he had no idea. "Bucky—you've known me your whole life."

"Were you my mission?"

"Will it help if I say I was?"

"Not really, please don't," Natasha says out of the corner of her mouth, with a potent tone of urgency, thus far reserved for aliens.

Bucky, meanwhile, almost cracks a smile. "My missions are to terminate."

"Finish it, then," Steve says, and comes a step closer, arms spreading just enough to show he's not holding any weapons. "Because I'm with you to the end of the line."

Something happens them, something he couldn't put a name to if he lived to see another century. The rigid line of Bucky's spine loosens, his shoulders drop, but his eyes remain fixed on Steve's.

"I know you," he says again, but this time it is a whisper, a soft, small sound of confusion and hurt. "But I don't remember."

"It's okay," Steve answers, equally soft, and this time he does cry. Bucky is alive, he repeats to himself, but this time the voice is not mocking, a cold reminder of his greatest failure, but a revelation, and within that a promise. "I remember you."

He reaches out and finds that while Bucky's skin is still cold to the touch, it is the coldness of a living human, a man who wandered in a blizzard too long. His fingertips travel to the side of Bucky's neck, to his pulse, and god, he feels it, can feel each beat of his heart.

There are still droplets of moisture on Bucky's skin and the bodysuit, water, anti-freeze agents, whatever they needed to cover him with to make sure the inside of the pod wouldn't damage him, and all of it is now soaking through Steve's shirt. He doesn't care. Couldn't care. Even through the fabric he can feel the warmth of Bucky's body merging with his, can feel himself becoming whole.

Bucky's arms slowly come up, Steve feels the press of flesh and metal against his back, the warmth blooming where they touch. He must be glowing, he thinks, there's no other way to describe the sensation. Bucky's in his arms, and everything is going to be alright.

"The war is over. We can come home," Steve whispers. "And this time… this time I'll get it right. I promise."

THE END


End file.
